The Dawn of Yangchen

“It feels like a giant is about to grab me.”

“Or let you go,” Jetsun said. “A hand either opens or closes. But it can’t do either of those twice in a row.”

Humility isn’t more important than the truth.

At the age of eleven, Yangchen had known who she was

The ease with which past Avatars slipped into Yangchen’s speech troubled the leaders of the Western Temple.

It was simply unjust. To remember the events of a single life was painful enough. Reliving dozens of lives would be . . . well, it would be like getting caught by a tsunami. Swept away by forces beyond your control.

“What’s mine is mine, Henshe,” she said. “I’m not giving up what I’ve earned. You’d better see to that.”

“Of course.” Henshe hid his scoff with his bow. Noehi acted like she’d clawed her riches from the sea with her bare hands, when she probably had never seen a spiraled oyster that hadn’t already been shucked. Her father had been granted the pearl monopoly simply because he’d had the same calligraphy tutor as the Earth King, and then he died of a heart clutch, leaving the entire business to his daughter.

Earned. That was the thing about these merchants. They feigned enterprise and risk-taking when all they were doing was drinking from a river no one else was allowed to approach.